That's about to be me, I think. Voluntary incarceration, perhaps, but incarceration nonetheless.
It started slowly - I got a G-mail account a few years ago. Never used it much, mind you, but I had it. And therefore, I had a Google account.
I've been using Blogger for several years; that was fine, but now Google owns Blogger, and I sign into my Blogger account with my Google account. Picasa? Same thing. Soon, You Tube will also be connected to my Google account, since they're now owned by Google...
I've also contributed to this domination - I've started using Gmail a lot more now, too, ever since I learned that I can check my other email accounts via Gmail, and I can send from them, too. So, I can check my email anywhere...
I've also set my own customized iGoogle as my Home page when I open my browser. iGoogle has let me customize the page in a way that suits me - it loads news headlines from sources of my choice, shows my email inbox and a calendar. I've even got my Google Bookmarks sitting in a widget on the page.
It's a bit frightening to think about how much information Google now has, but as their slogan is "Don't do Evil", perhaps I can trust them...
2 comments:
Yeah, it is sobering to think how much information is in Google's possesson, isn't it? Can't help but love the convenience, though!
Google is in possession of more than you know. There is a new feature which tracks in real time searches being done on Google and reports them. Google also keeps records of every IP address conducting searches and the terms used in those searches - so do the other search engines - all of them have given this info to the US Justice department. Google also modifies returned results based on which Google you are searching - Check this link:
http://images.google.cn/images?q=tiananmen
And now this one
http://images.google.com/images?q=tiananmen
One searches Google which is accessible to China and the other is Google accessible to the rest of us.
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